The fate of one American client of Dezan Shira & Associates staying at the Taj Hotel remains unknown with local staff unable to contact them or establish any verified presence of the individual concerned with either the city hospitals or police. The firm remains in close contact with his US head office and with US consular officials and the emergency services and is providing support for other clients who remain in the city. All Dezan Shira staff are accounted for and safe, although the local office, sited just behind the Taj Hotel has suffered “extensive” damage.

No knowing who that "quote" is supposed to be from, but he then went on to say this:

The Dezan Shira & Associates administration offices for China inbound investment at Raheja Center Point in Mumbai have thankfully escaped damage, however the practice offices, dealing with Indian investment will remain closed for the next week while damage - that fortunately is largely superficial - is repaired. We'll try and get some photos up probably on the 2point6billion site when the area around the Taj, which is still being sanitized is open again to traffic and pedestrians.

For the record, according to Dezan Shira's website, and all other available information, Dezan Shira has only one office in Mumbai, that being the one at the Raheja Center point, and that one is way out in the suburbs near the airport and miles from the scene of the violence. A quick check on the internet shows that the office actually belongs to Regus - a temporary/virtual office rental service. An associate of mine called the office to check whether they had suffered any damage and had the following conversation:

Trrring trrring. "Regus Mumbai how can I help you sir?" Yes this is . . I am calling to check, in the light of the Mumbai attacks, if we can come to Mumbai in January as we have read on the Dezan Shira website that their office was seriously damaged. "No Sir, no damage here at all, we are open for business" "Dezan Shira is one of our virtual clients, can I book a meeting room?" "No I will let you know once we have booked our tickets". "Thank you for calling Sir and have a nice day"

So there you have it, no damage whatsoever to the offices according to the people who work there. It's been more than two months since the attacks and no pictures have been posted and no answer to our enquiries as to why has been received from Dez Shira. Plus, it seems that Dezan Shira only has a 'virtual office' in Mumbai - otherwise known as a letter box.

Chris Devonshire-Ellis is again trying to intimidate a webmaster to have comments removed. And with intimidating phone calls early in the morning I think this blogger should file a police report against Ellis as he is clearly being harassed.

The saga continues, indeed! You know all this, of course, but for the record's sake: A post on LLW blog ("Would the real Chris Devonshire-Ellis please stand up") led to a lively discussion (71 comments). On February 12, 2009, in an update to this post, Ryan explained that"Due to the fact I’ve received legal threats from Chris Devonshire-Ellis as well as threats stating he will attempt to have this site blocked in China (being that he’s buddies with the vice minister of MIIT - see his site for the official palm squeeze) I’ve decided to take the comments down."Not long after that, the post itself was taken down.The comments may be gone, but the post has been cached on Google:

Also, a reference to this LLW post appeared on The Peking Duck "Holiday Thread" February 13, 2009. This TPD post has also been taken down after a commenter noted that LLW link was "dead". The post has, however, been cached, too (minus comment #2 re dead link):